


His Name in Vein

by homo_pink



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hospital, Infidelity, Jealousy, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-11
Updated: 2014-03-11
Packaged: 2018-01-15 09:15:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1299634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/homo_pink/pseuds/homo_pink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jensen is an Emergency Room nurse working the night shift and Jared's the patient with a lot of emergencies.</p>
<p>For anon, who asked for <i>J2 AU with infidelity, they cheat on spouse not each other.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	His Name in Vein

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Имя его в венах](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6026602) by [J_Squared (Wincent_Cester)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wincent_Cester/pseuds/J_Squared), [Savannah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Savannah/pseuds/Savannah)



> Thank you, M, for coming up with a fitting title ♥

They meet on a Tuesday morning. At 2:03 a.m. to be precise, when Jared is twenty-six years old.

Jensen knows this because the plastic ER-issued bracelet he'll later end up strapping around the patient’s wrist tells him so. The guy’s not little by any means, decked out in camo cargo shorts and well loved flip flops, and all the other miserable folks stuck out in the waiting area are positively without compunction over the fact that they’re outright gawking at the spectacle. It’d be hard not to.

He’s shirtless, sweaty, dripping fat globules of blood onto the white tiled floor, and screaming his fucking head off.

“Sir,” Jensen tries, approaching calmly. 

The guy whirls around to face him, eyes wide and wild, long flippy hair in damp tendrils. He pauses his hysteria enough to momentarily take in Jensen’s black scrubs, his hospital badge and for that to somehow placate him enough to quiet down to torturous moaning as he follows Jensen back to one of the empty exam rooms.

As soon as they’re in, he promptly and efficiently throws up in the little wash sink next to the rubber gloves.

Jensen doesn’t bat an eye; this response doesn’t even rank in the top thirty. Of the night, even. He waits until the poor dude’s managed to rinse his mouth out as best as he can before he goes right for the meat, “What are we in for today, Mr.—“

“Jared,” he squeaks, taking heaving breaths while he leans against the counter for support.

“Mr. Jared, then,” Jensen says, patting the top of the metal-backed chair.

Jared falls into the cushy seat with a screeching scrape that drags it against the floor with his weight and looks up at Jensen with big, wet, Bambi eyes. He holds his hand out for Jensen to see and turns a cheek, unable to look at the carnage.

“Ah,” Jensen says, no reaction in his voice. The guy’s already a walking telenovela, no need to rile him up. Jensen takes the wounded limb and places it on the little cleaning table, keeping his touch all butterfly wings and gentle breezes, and doing his utmost best at keeping his _eyes_ from rolling. Not that it’d even matter. Jared’s got his own eyes clamped shut and his jaw clenched, like Jensen’s got a powersaw rumbling at the ready.

“Just gonna do some quick cleaning to start with,” Jensen tells him, rolling on his stool a little to reach the antiseptic solution. Jared hisses and squirms, and when Jensen’s finished flushing it out with a squeeze bottle of cool water and he mentions there’ll be a teeny pricking sensation, Jared almost passes out cold. From the numbing shot.

Jensen keeps all sighs, muttering, and judging to himself.

 

-

 

In the end, Jared gets eight little blue sutures on his thumb and Jensen gives him one of the lollipops he usually reserves for the tots. Like the little supergirl who came in earlier with a fractured wrist and more or less yawned her way through x-rays and prodding and casting. Still though, it makes Jared smile and the smile is, admittedly, way nicer than the mindless shrieking he’d almost started up again with the first stitch Jensen went to work on.

Jensen had been able to talk him through it though, distracting him with questions about the best zombie movie he’d ever seen, what his weekend plans were, and finally getting his information, repeating everything loud enough for the triage nurse to key in.

"So the next time an _already broken_ glass decides to suicide dive to the floor while we're washing dishes," Jensen says, scribbling his signature on Jared's aftercare instructions, "what are we gonna do?" 

"Let it fall," Jared says, cradling his bandaged hand to his chest. "Grieve its loss."

"And what are we not gonna do?"

"Attempt to rescue it mid-air," Jared nods solemnly. 

"Right. No more reckless heroism, Mr. Jared."

Jared smiles candy-purpled lips around his grape lollipop, takes his discharge papers, and sheepishly waves goodbye to Jensen, his _new favorite nurse_. His words. 

Jensen keeps all sarcasm, dry quips, and the nauseating urge to smile to himself.

 

-

 

Mr. Jared makes his next appearance two weeks later.

Jensen’s just finished treating a woman with second degree burns after her curling iron slipped from her hand onto her bare leg when Jared comes hobbling through the sliding doors, hand clutched at his lower belly and wheezing like Lord Vader. 

Jensen ushers him to the back and lays him down on a fresh bed, rubs various parts of his abdomen, _do you feel any pain here_ and _what about here_ , and Jared is able to gasp out all the various things he’s consumed in the last forty-eight hours. At first Jensen's leaning toward food poisoning but then no – Jared’s tongue is pretty much doubled in size. It's not a medical discovery.

Jared leaves with a temporary inhaler, a shot of epinephrine and a new hatred for the Asian takeout place down the block from his house.

“Foof allerdy,” he huffs, “whafafuck?”

Jensen tsks and shakes his head and tells him, probably too delightedly, exactly where online he can buy a little rubber allergy warning bracelet. Some even have cartoon characters. “That MSG’ll kill ya.”

Jared doesn’t have room in his mouth for suckers this time but he does have it in him to flip Jensen the finger on his way out the door. He looks back over his shoulder though, just long enough for Jensen to see the little grin sent his way. Jensen fingerwaves goodbye and pastes on a plastic smile to cover up the real one that's fighting to show through.

 

-

 

“Do we need to set you up with a gold star membership card?”

“I might never walk again and you’re _laughing_ at me?” 

“Oh dear, you might be right,” Jensen says, leaning down to inspect. He goes quiet, his expression grave. “Best to just amputate, cut our losses.”

Jared looks stricken.

“No more flag football at night. In the rain,” Jensen says, over an hour later. “Barefoot.” 

Jared limps away on a minor sprain, ankle swaddled in ace bandages, and tells Jensen he’s switching hospitals. _The staff here are nothing but assholes_. Jensen is utterly charmed by such praise.

 

-

 

"Dude! It's not like there's a, what, 'safe berries to eat' guide out there or anything," Jared's saying, just as Jensen's wondering how Jared's insurance company hasn't simply dropped him already. "Is there?"

Jensen prints out the wild berry article himself and hands it over with the rest of Jared's sendoff paperwork.

 

-

 

“For fuck’s sake, would you just ask him out already? I’m so sick of seeing you pine. It makes me feel ill.”

_I don’t_ pine, Jensen almost says, but that would be admitting something. He’s not sure what, but something. And he’s not admitting a damn thing. He locks in a solid deathray glare in Gen’s direction though.

“What, like you’re not desperately into him?” she goes on around a mouthful of oatmeal, feet up on the break room table. “I’ve seen you, Ackles. Not hard to guess. You’re displaying all the correct symptoms.”

“Do tell,” he says, blandly flipping the page of the book he’s got his nose buried in. 

“Oh, huh. Let's see. Well. There’s the way you won’t let any of us treat him, for starters.”

“I can’t help that I’m more competent,” he says. “It’s a curse.”

“And the way we’ve suddenly got new inventory. Like those cute little superhero band-aids that wound up here instead of up on Pediatrics, hmm. Odd. So odd.” 

“We get child injuries often,” Jensen says, in full disagreement, still reading. 

“Or the way you dreamy-sigh all over the room after he’s gone,” she says, not even listening to him anymore, spoon clanking the roof of her mouth while she thinks up more incriminating evidence. 

“’Dreamy-sigh’,” Jensen scoffs. “It’s called breathing.”

“ _Wetly_ ,” she says, shuddering her disgust. “And when someone suddenly stops wearing their glasses…”

“Contact lenses. If I go too long, I’ll lose the habit and they’ll dry up. Waste of money.” Obviously.

“And if they’re suddenly brushing their teeth four times a night…”

“Good hygiene.”

“And staring at the admittance login sheet like they hope they didn’t miss anything when they went for their nap. Or any _one_.”

“I don’t do that,” Jensen sighs. He shoves an empty bag of M&Ms in to save his place and shuts his book.

“Just like you don’t run to the bathroom five minutes after he leaves?”

“That was once!” Jared had a groin related injury last week and there may have been prolonged touching. Jensen was being thorough. _Competent_. Besides, it’s not like he did anything unsanitary in the stall. Right into the toilet and then washed his hands twice.

Gen lifts a brow, like she’s got his number now. “You need to get in that boy's pants already. Bigfuckingtime. You’re worse than those cats that drag their butts all over the floor, you know? And speaking of, half the time you yourself look just about ready to drag that perky little ass of yours right over his lap and—“

“Okay!” Jensen chokes out, managing to cut her off. He chops his hands through the air and hops out of his seat. “Okay. _Okay_. Fucking shit, dude, you're freakin' _mean_." 

She mouths _puss_ at him. 

Mean. 

"Next time he comes in. Next time he shows up, I’ll just, I’ll. I’ll try to … do something,” he finishes weakly. Just the fuzzy images of what Gen had been merely suggesting. “Just cut it out.”

The back of his neck is still flaring hot when he snatches his book up and flees the lounge, Gen’s cheers of joy and smug cackles echoing off the empty corridor.

 

-

 

In his defense, he wasn’t really expecting _next time_ to translate to _an hour later_ , but there he is, stumbling in at midnight, and Jensen just barely manages to reign in his panic in time to school his features into something casual, and not at all like he’s running drills in his head and telling himself to chill the fuck out.

Gen muffles a spluttering laugh behind a deep cough when she sees what the cat dragged in.

Only it’s not a cat. It’s a girl. A slim little wisp with bouncy breasts and a pretty red manicure, hauling Jared in by his elbow and plunking him down at the first nurse’s station she sees open. It’s Gen’s.

_Sister_ , Gen mouths encouragingly, so sure of it, while Jared’s busy having the icepack on his head readjusted and neither of them are paying attention. 

_Date_ , Jensen thinks sourly, realistically, busying himself with one of his other patients. Of course it’d happen like this. That’s so like his life to pull a fast one on him. When Jensen’s actually nutted up enough to seriously consider the idea of hitting on Jared, ‘course the guy would be on a date. Cold dose of reality and all that.

Except he isn't.

_Wife_ , he hears tossed out somewhere in the conversation he’s not listening in on. 

Jensen blinks. And stares down at his shaking hands. And ignores the way his stomach churns, and the way his skin prickles, and he swallows down hard against the mass lodged in his throat that might just be his stupid, furiously-beating suckerpunched heart. He eases the blood pressure cuff off of Mr. Wong's arm and focuses his concentration back on things that actually matter.

 

-

 

“Is Jensen busy?” 

“Oh,” he can hear Gen saying. “I’m not sure. I’d have to check, but why don’t you have a seat right here. Danni can get you checked out—“, and Jensen feels warmed by the knowledge that she’s doing her best to keep Jared out of his vicinity, but it’s not enough to scrape the bile-taste off his tongue when he thinks about what he almost went and did. 

It’s not even Gen’s fault. He’d been thinking heavily of Jared’s lopsided smiles half the time he took care of business in the shower. He was bound to slip up somewhere, eventually.

He hears heavy footsteps squeak against the linoleum around the corner and doesn’t need to turn around to know Gen doesn’t stomp quite that loud.

“Hey,” Jared says, small and childlike when he sees Jensen sitting there, perfunctorily organizing the antibiotics cabinet. “I didn’t know if you were busy or.”

When he doesn’t go on, Jensen says, not a little frostily, “Kinda am.”

“Oh right, okay. Sorry. I just wanted to see—“ He clears his throat. “See if you had any more of those sweet bandages you used on me last time, but I guess it doesn’t really matter…”

Jensen looks up, sees the gloomy slump of Jared’s shoulders hidden beneath his Deadpool hoodie, his gaze aimed at Jensen’s beat up Chucks, and sighs the sigh of a man truly defeated. “Still got a few.”

Jared eyes him hopefully, takes his rightful seat in front of Jensen, and lets Jensen patch up his (non-concussed) bruised forehead with a glow in the dark Spiderman band-aid. They don’t talk about what’s sitting out in the waiting room, or the charge that Jensen swears he can feel humming in the air between them, or the way Jared reaches up and accidentally touches Jensen’s knuckles when he’s wrapping up, and definitely not the way he doesn’t pull back right away, but lets his fingers wander, to the space between Jensen’s thumb and pointer, down to his wrist, the soft inner intimate part. 

They don’t talk about anything. In a way, it’s better that they don’t. Jensen doesn't need to give any more fodder to the dumb crush he's been nursing on a guy who's already bought and paid for, wrapped in a bow. Who knows what he’d end up saying out of spite.

 

-

 

The next week, Jared thinks he has an inguinal hernia. Rough week at the gym, blah blah, he swears he can feel it, like, _festering_. Jensen's pretty sure Jared's thinking of a hiatal hernia and not inguinal, but he rolls with it.

“Does it hurt when you pee?” Jensen asks clinically from behind his clipboard. It's obvious Jared's just making shit up now. For what sick reason, Jensen's not sure. Jared never struck him as the douchey type. That was more Jensen's specialty.

Jared fidgets. “Um, no.”

“Have you noticed any weird changes near your scrotum? Enlarged testicles can sometimes be a direct indicator—“

Blushing beet red all the way down his neck, Jared shakes his head fiercely and mumbles something about probably being wrong, maybe not a hernia after all. He leaves, and Jensen smiles meanly to himself, pleased in a way he has no right to be.

Six days later, Jared has a broken pinky toe.

Jensen tells him to go home, ice it, elevate it, and stay off of it as much as he can until it resettles. Home, Jensen thinks, where Jared has a shared bed, and a life, and a wife. Jared doesn’t smile when he leaves. Jensen reminds himself that he doesn’t care.

 

-

 

When Jared shows up the following Thursday just creeping up on 3 o'clock in the morning, a time he knows that Jensen tries to take his lunch break most days, that’s it. That’s just fucking it. Jensen’s just like everyone else – made of the same flesh and bone and blood and all the other weak things that can go cripple at the sight of that _one_ person – he’s human, and bitter, and tonight he’s livid.

He storms out from behind the nurse’s station and doesn’t even give Jared the chance to sputter on about a busted rib, or a fatal nosebleed, or some made up disease his grandfather had that skips a generation, just walks right up to him and says, “What is it today, hmm?” 

“I think—“

“No, I don’t believe you do, Jared.”

Jared sort of scans the waiting room nervously, but only a few stragglers remain, most of them passed out while Oprah reruns drone on quietly from the TV mounted in the corner. 

“Are you actually sick? Let’s start there.”

“Not really, no.” He swallows, darting a glance behind Jensen’s shoulder, where his friends are probably watching. Jensen doesn’t need an audience, any witnesses to his unraveling. 

“Are you hurt in some way that I can’t see right at this moment?”

“Um, okay, look—“

Jensen doesn’t look though, he stalks off out of the Emergency Room and rounds the edge of the building, digging in his back pocket for a smoke. _One of those fucking days_. He’s lit up and exhaling out into the balmy night sky when Jared crunches gravel right next to him and Jensen can feel his heavy presence enough to make him blink open and fix him with a flat, blank stare. 

“Are you mad at me?” Jared asks, like it might not be horrifically obvious why Jensen’s been on his rag for the last few weeks. “Did I do something…?”

Jensen laughs, and it comes out like a rusted hinge. “Please. What could you have possibly done to upset me?” Jared flounders, so Jensen keeps going. “That’s stupid.” _You’re stupid_ , it sounds like. _I’m stupid,_ it feels like. “I barely even know you.”

The sleeves of Jared's stupid worn-through t-shirt tighten as Jensen watches him tense up, and Jensen takes a slow drag from the stick and quietly wonders why the fuck he’s being so goddamn cruel. They’re friends, or at least they were, even if Jensen pretended they weren’t, and he doesn’t know why he felt the need to say that. Or maybe he does, and it’s just easier to feign oblivion than admit, even to himself, that he wants Jared to burn the way he burns.

He’d just, he'd really liked the guy is all. 

His corny jokes, and the way he swept his hair out of his eyes, and the way he'd grin dopily and call Jensen _pretty_ , like that was the worst insult he could come up with, and in the quiet parts of Jensen's heart where no one can hear, he knows exactly how bad he’d wanted him, all of him, knows exactly how bad he still does. Even knowing. 

That’s probably the worst part too, that Jensen still wants it, that Jensen still _would_ , if Jared even so much as looked at him the right way, the wrong way.

“Got it,” Jared says to the brick wall, nodding. “I guess I’d better go.”

“Yup,” Jensen agrees. He stubs out against the sole of his shoe and flicks the butt to land wherever, blowing out a triplet of smoke rings just to be petty. He’s great with his mouth. He wants Jared to know that, even a little, so that maybe when he goes home to fuck his wife he’ll feel the phantom ache around his dick where Jensen’s lips never were. “Best not to keep the missus waiting.”

Jensen clicks his tongue against his teeth, lifts his chin in farewell, and walks back into the building.

 

-

 

He never sees him coming, is the thing, which about sums up everything to do with the way Jared careened his way into Jensen's otherwise uneventful world.

He’s not even hungry, plans on leaving his sack lunch for someone with an appetite to find, and has every intention to sleep the cynicism the fuck away. He went overboard, he knows that. It’s not Jared’s fault that he’s goofy and easy to talk to and crazy gorgeous and exactly Jensen’s type. 

He pushes his way into one of the sleep rooms, kicks his shoes off, and is rudely pushed the rest of the way inside when someone shoves in after him.

“So that’s what I did? You won't talk to me because of her.”

Jensen stumbles at the sound of that voice, catches himself from falling smack down on his ass at the last possible second and stares dazedly at Jared. Jared who’s not allowed back in this area of the hospital, and who’s standing close enough to just – grab, Jared whose chest is lifting and falling like he ran the entire way and didn’t slow down to turn corners, and he’s right there, right here, and he looks fucking beside himself with black rage.

It’s really doing it for Jensen actually. Things are happening in his pants that can’t be willed away for nothing.

"I would talk to you," Jensen says stupidly. He's staring at Jared's lips, shiny and perfect for kissing.

"But you're not."

"Because I," Jensen clears his head, can't keep looking at Jared when he feels this reckless. "I wouldn't be able to just talk to you." He hopes Jared gets it, that he doesn't make Jensen spell it out for him. Because he would. He'd do it. He'd get down on his knees right now and write it in slow licks and deep sucking pulls until his jaw went numb from overuse. He'd absolutely do that. He _wants_ to do it.

Jared makes a strangled little sound and scoots closer, dangerously little in the way between them.

"You mean—"

"Yeah," Jensen says, not needing to hear the rest. He means it all. He means it fully.

When Jared kisses him, both hands cradled around to wrap from Jensen's jaw to the back of his head and a tongue that slides in carefully the moment Jensen opens for him, his worst fears are confirmed. Jared's lips are every bit as perfect as they look.

 

-

 

They trade blowjobs that night, and phone numbers, and Jared leaves with a stretched out collar and without the underwear he walked in with. Jensen goes back to work with his insides scooped out and the taste of Jared’s cock still there on his tongue. Of all the nights he should brush his teeth four times, it’s then. But he doesn’t do it. 

It gives him a sick thrill just thinking about the places on Jared he put his mouth, and the way Jared moaned for it and pressed his head down harder, and almost _cried_ when he came. Jensen licks his lips and smiles a secret smile to himself, a dirty filthy smile.

 

-

 

Her name is Daisy.

She’s a bank teller with a knack for pottery art, likes EDM and grunge rock, and has a weakness for taking in stray animals off the street. They have four cats, two dogs, and an orphaned baby squirrel in the current mix. Jared met her a few years ago during Mardi Gras and they were married two days later. She’s fun, and super sweet from what Jensen gleans off the rare instances Jared mentions her at all, and Jensen hates her passionately.

He likes to pretend she’s a vapid, squeaking party girl who flashed her tits for rainbow beads and won Jared over with the help of 190 proof alcohol and a well timed cheeseburger.

The real story is something more like they met at a parade, traded masks, got a little tipsy and flirty, which enabled the fact that they (wow, no way) had the same hometown feel less like a basic 8 hour drive and more of a stroke-of-destiny soulmate connection phenomenon. It was NOLA. They were 23. There was a vibe. It went something like that.

Jensen prefers his bead theory.

Daisy's a tiny thing just over five feet and some change, perky and sunny, smells like Happy by Clinique, and she's all the things that Jensen's not. 

He's taller than average, with wide shoulders and a funny walk, is easily annoyed and often irritable, and usually reeks of various hospital unpleasantries. He has no idea why Jared's interested in hitting it at all. 

It’d be a lot easier to convince himself that _she’s_ the part of the equation that doesn’t belong if she were any of the things Jensen tells himself she has to be. But she doesn’t blow up Jared’s phone demanding to know where he is, and she doesn’t whine for him to come home when he stays out late a few nights of the week, and really, it's possible she's just a really great girl. 

Sometimes Jensen goes home alone, fingers himself open, thinks of Jared touching him, and smiling at him, and saying the things he probably says to his wife, and Jensen hates himself passionately.

 

-

 

The first time Jared fucks his ass, they’re in Jensen’s cramped apartment seeking refuge from the rain beating down outside, tumbled down onto the bedroom floor, cold and drippy and clinging to shoulders, faces, anything in reach.

They don’t even make it to the bed.

Jared stares down at him for a silent second, lips pulled between his teeth in thoughtful concentration and sweeps the pad of his thumb over Jensen's mouth, drags his bottom lip until it touches the dip of his chin. Then he turns Jensen over, inside out really, and puts him on all fours like a dog. Jensen trembles with how much he fucking wants it, and angles his spinning head down to rest on his forearms. 

Jared's blanketed down on him, chest to back, mouth pressed to Jensen's temple, and he rubs warm palms all up and down Jensen's torso, the smooth flat of his belly until he's got a hot hand rubbing at Jensen's cock, wrapping around, squeezing and playing and dragging slickly over top.

The heavy hard length of him ruts into the back of Jensen's thigh, and Jared asks, “Yeah?”, like it’s that simple. 

And Jensen nods, because even though it isn’t, it is. It could be.

Jared pushes into him just as the rain starts to slow down to sluggish trickles against the glass, and Jensen lets himself relax, lets his back arch as Jared fucks the painful impression of cheap carpet into his skin, and lets Jared have whatever he wants.

 

-

 

The idea of working from home sounds like the very picture of bliss. On the surface anyway.

Make your own schedule, be your own boss, sleep in, stay in your boxers all day and scratch your balls without having to think twice. Sounds like fucking nirvana actually. 

But then. There’s probably room for a little _too much_ leniency. Jensen doesn’t think he’d have that sort of willpower to not slack off, lacks the motivation needed to get the job done without sirens blaring and someone’s life on the line. But it works for Jared really well.

Jared’s some sort of software genius, tinkers with game apps or something something. Jensen doesn’t know, he’s got the gist of it and that’s well enough for him. He doesn’t need social security numbers and a background check. It’s not that serious. They’re just wasting time, screwing around, and riding the wave however long it lasts.

Besides, he knows the important stuff. Favorite beer, favorite member of the Fantastic Four, favorite singer for Van Halen. Vital things. 

He also knows the way Jared has a strong preference for being the little spoon even though he denies and denies but still wakes up with his butt nestled into Jensen’s crotch. He also knows that Jared has a scar behind his right knee and gets off on having his hair tugged on and that both hipbones are major ticklish spots, _off limits, motherfucker!_

And Jensen knows, too, the quiet way that Jared asks for what he wants without having to ask at all, with just a look, or a dimple, or pink blotches at his cheeks when he knocks into Jensen's hand too-casually and then waits until their fingers slot together before he finishes rehashing whatever ridiculous dream he's just woken up from this time.

So yes, all of the important stuff.

But they’re just screwing around.

 

-

 

It goes on that way for a couple of weeks. 

Jared spends as many of Jensen’s days off with him as he can, inviting himself over to watch _Evil Dead_ and changing his mind ten minutes into it and deciding to eat Jensen out for the better part of an hour until he’s shamelessly begging Jared to put it in, put it in. 

He brings drive-thru breakfast for Jensen to scarf on his lunch hour. McMuffins, croissants, usually something greasy and disgusting and delicious, with cheesy pickup lines written onto the napkins, like Jensen’s not a sure lay. _is your name osteoporosis?_ it’ll read one day, scribbled in blue highlighter.

“Because you’re giving me a bone condition,” Jared will say later, giggling his way down the soft trail of hair under Jensen’s navel.

Jared goes through a miraculous full recovery and subsequently stops having medical false alarms every other evening and Jensen's so gone on the guy that he doesn't even bother wasting precious time mentioning it. He has better things to be doing now. And he does them. All of them. When Jared's all collapsed back against the pillows at Jensen's headboard, sweaty and fucked out and eyes blurry stupid and hot, he might just be the most incredible thing that's ever walked into Jensen's life.

It starts that way. But it doesn't stay that way.

 

-

 

“I did that once,” Danni says out of nowhere, on a day Jensen’s pulling a double shift, leaving him already cranky as is.

“What’s that?” 

“Banged a married dude.”

His head shoots up, hands stilling.

“Nobody told me anything, calm down. I have eyes. I hear things. And I know that look.”

_Not this again,_ he thinks. _There’s no look_ , he wants to say, but it’d likely be a lie. There’s probably a look. 

“It was good too. Great even,” she goes on, almost reverently. “For awhile.”

“Let me guess. The wife found out, the guy cut loose, and now you’re here to be my guiding light and lead me on the right path before anyone gets hurt.” It’s way more defensive than anything he expects out himself and wow, really bitter too. When did that happen?

“’fraid not,” Danni says, ignoring his outer layer of asshole. “Too late for that. And like I said, it was pretty great. I wouldn’t do it again but I wouldn’t take it back either. And no, she didn’t find out.”

“Okay,” Jensen says at last, taking the bait when Danni doesn’t follow up. “Then what?”

She lifts a perfectly tweezed brow.

“Why are you telling me this moral of the story shit? What’s the awful thing that happened? You get knocked up or something?”

“Why? Scared that’s gonna happen to you?” And Jensen can’t help snorting at that. "No, dickbreath, nothing like that. Everything was peaches. Sweet peaches. The only downside to the whole situation is the falling in love part. That's the messy stuff. Just make sure you don't go and do that and you're gold."

Jensen scoffs. "Not planning on it." And the thing is, when he says it, it's absolutely true. He was never ever planning on it.

 

-

 

Jensen’s done a lot of bad things in his life, over the years, and not all of them things he regrets.

One of the worst ones, though, happens one night when Jared’s stopped by “just for a minute. I can’t stay. Just wanted to see you,” and hands over a bag of pretzel M&Ms, Jensen's favorite, just because he saw them there at the checkout, _I dunno_ , and Jensen can’t just let something like that _go_ , at least not without a few minutes of frenetic, hurried kissing and over-the-clothes groping. He yanks Jared into his apartment and not five minutes into it, Jared’s phone starts beeping and shaking on Jensen’s coffee table with the photo of a smiling Daisy lighting up the screen in more than one way.

They both see it. They don’t pretend not to. 

Jensen’s wandering hands pause in their descent to Jared’s fly and Jared doesn’t reach for it. The phone stops ringing, Jared bites the inside of his cheek, and Jensen picks up where he left off. He's licking a trail down the long column of Jared’s throat, dropping his teeth down every other inch, popping the button and making quick work of the zipper and nobody's mood is killed. And then Jared’s phone goes off again.

“Answer it,” Jensen says, and when Jared does nothing more than eye it distrustfully, he grabs it himself, hands it over. He doesn’t think about what he’s doing, or why, he just – does it. And he knows he's a jerk for even debating it, but he doesn't care, not really, not much.

Jared looks rightfully hesitant, but it keeps on and on, and eventually he slides the green arrow across.

“Hey,” Jared says, and Jensen goes right to work, no second thoughts.

“I didn’t hear it, sorry, oh. Yeah. Well, no. I already left the hardware store—“ and his eyes go all large and panicked when he sees what Jensen’s doing, and he’s shaking his head and trying to sink himself deeper into the sofa cushions, “Not too far. I can turn back if—“

Jensen slides down until his knees hit the rug and he tugs Jared’s pants the rest of the way off his thighs, spreads Jared open as much will allow. A muffled little cry gets his attention and Jared looks down at him helplessly, silently begging Jensen’s mercy, but Jensen hardly has any of that stuff anyway and besides, Jared’s still all the way hard, Jensen’s not a fucking idiot.

“Okay,” Jared says into the phone, _obviously_ into the phone, but Jensen grins like it was meant for him instead and drops his mouth down onto Jared’s cock, getting him all nice and wet on the first try. 

Jared chokes a little. “Light bulbs, yes. I won’t forget. I’m writing it on my hand right now—“ And that’s such a lie because the only thing Jared’s doing right now is pushing his hips up and up and holding onto one of Jensen’s shoulders like he can’t decide if he’s trying to push him off or pull him closer.

Jared’s huge, larger than most really, easily the biggest Jensen’s ever had, and he takes serious fucking pride in the fact that he can deepthroat Jared enough to get him most of the way down. It’s sloppy and noisy and more than once Jared has to press his thumb over the mouthpiece when it passes the point of being just a little licking and stroking.

“72 watt. Halogen. Four pack,” Jared’s clipped, speaking in choppy bursts and if Jensen could, he’d grin at that. But his mouth’s full, his throat’s stuffed, and he thinks Jared might actually kill him if he survives any of this. As is, he looks about ready to go off any second. It just makes Jensen try all the harder.

“Coupons? Uh, I doubt it,” Jared struggles to say.

As Jensen wrenches his mouth off of Jared, a large hand immediately clamps down on his neck so he doesn’t go too far, and Jensen buries the godawful lovestruck smile he’s got going right in the warm crease at Jared’s thigh. “Okay, send it to my e-mail,” Jared says, and after a few recovering breaths, Jensen makes his way back to where it’s all spitty and twitchy and gets his mouth back around again. "I'll ask."

Jensen’s hard in his sweatpants, stiff and sticky against the thin material, and he’d do something about it except he doesn’t care as much about that as he cares about _this_ , and when Jared’s head rolls back against the couch and he very silently and very efficiently pulses down Jensen’s wrecked throat in warm runny bursts, his wife still tittering on about code scanning and unknowingly listening in, Jensen feels indescribably cheery about the whole thing. 

Jared leaves a few minutes later, and Jensen watches through the window until he’s just a speck in the distance. Then he sags against the wall and slides down until his butt finds the floor. He feels changed, somehow. New. Like something happened here tonight, something real, something more than an illicit blowjob between buddies.

 

-

 

“There’s vomit in my hair.”

An impressed whistle and then, “Nice. Need me to make an Alka Seltzer and Gatorade delivery later? Is this a Code Green?” Internal disaster. Jensen loves that Jared even knows that.

“I’m not hungover, you twit.” But Jensen can feel a grin curling the corner of his mouth.

“Ah, I see. It was MSG, wasn’t it? That damned ol’ thing. Gets the best of us. A wise man once told me—“

He interrupts swiftly. “It’s not _my_ vomit. That better?”

Over the phone, Jared gives a contemplative _hmm_ and Jensen can picture him tapping the tip of his nose. “There’s porn about that, you know.”

Jensen laughs. “Trust me, nobody in that room had a boner.”

“Good thing,” Jared agrees. Jensen hears the quick clacking sound of keyboard taps over the line. “Wouldn’t wanna have to cockpunch anyone tonight if I can help it.” 

It’s trivial, and jokey, just a toss off comment, but Jensen feels the dumb flip at the bottom of his belly all the same. “Because only you can barf in my hair?” 

Gen looks up from administering a butterfly needle to shoot him an odd look.

“Ya damn straight,” Jared says, a huge smile painting his voice. “If anyone’s defiling the hot, bitchy nurse, best believe it needs to be handled by a professional. Pfffft. There’s a clause. I wrote it myself.”

On that note, Jensen ends the call and crams his phone back into his locker, but it’s not without a little reluctance and it’s absolutely with a lot of teeth showing.

 

-

 

It happens in the cereal aisle at Target. That’s where he sees her.

He never minds driving the distance to the more upscale superstore across town; the deli section has more variety and they carry the tomato turkey he loves. He’s there one day after a shift, stocking on veggies and cinnamon rolls and decently priced lube. Jared burns through that stuff like crazy so the temporary price cut lures Jensen into buying two bottles. He tucks them into his cart behind the paper towels and wheels over to toss in a box of plain Cheerios for himself and a big bag of that generic sugary crap Jared considers kingly decadence.

“Ha, wow,” someone says to his left. “I didn’t know anyone else ate that stuff.”

Strangers don’t often wander into his realm like this, especially while he’s buying groceries, so he turns pretty fast at the intrusion and nearly drops his jaw when he sees who’s standing right there at his side, small hand daintily covering her mouth.

“I’m sorry. Was that rude? I didn’t mean it to be. I just—“ She makes a face, like _who knows_ , and then laughs at herself. She doesn’t recognize him at all. “Forget it.”

“What?” Jensen asks, unable to stop himself.

“You’re just the only other person I’ve ever seen even reach for that. It’s—“

“Disgusting?” Jensen asks, and that’s sort of how he feels just then. He had her dude’s fingers in his _ass_ not two days ago and here he is, chatty cathying with her like it’s nothing.

“Yeah, exactly. My husband loves it though. I can’t even watch him eat it.”

She scans over the other shelves, not paying him much attention anymore, and it’s nothing to do with her, it’s really not, but the casual mention of Jared out in the open, just like that, like he could be anybody, and not something incredibly special, it spikes the irrational part of him into consciousness.

“Understandable,” he says, tossing the bag in. “My boyfriend’s the same way. It’s his favorite.” 

They’ve never talked about it in such bold terms, not ever, not in actual words, but it fits, by standard definition. Jared _is_ that, to him. He’s a lot more too, but he’s at least that. Jensen feels a little dizzy hearing it out loud. Dizzy, possessive, buzzing with little tingles of excitement at the hazy thought of maybe, eventually, one day, someday, soon.

“He adores it,” he goes on, a little out of his mind.

She smiles at him commiseratively, reaches for some fiber stuff. 

“Can't actually get enough of it.” 

“I can imagine,” she says, like she feels his pain or some shit.

“But I figure, if he likes it so much, why keep him from it, y’know?” And now he’s just being crazy.

“You might be onto something,” she agrees, and she nods at him as she goes, pushing her cart along. She doesn’t get the cereal they’d been talking about though, and in Jensen’s mind where everything’s starting to mean too much to him, he mentally adds it to the list of cons he'd sworn to himself he wasn’t actually making.

 

-

 

After a particularly satisfying fuck in the supply closet, Jared pushes a bead of sweat off Jensen's forehead. He brushes their noses together and gives him a soft kiss on the mouth. Something he's done before, often, but for some reason, it hits Jensen right then like a fatal K.O. and when they pull away, Jensen's whispering to himself, something dumb, something far off, something about peaches. 

"What?" Jared laughs, nuzzling at Jensen's jaw.

"Nothing," Jensen says, when he means to say _everything_ , everything.

 

-

 

All in all, Jared’s basically perfect. He’s silly and talkative and when he’s not braining himself on cabinet doors, he’s actually crazy smart, and not just about work stuff. He’s also endlessly pleasing to look at, knows how to hold his liquor and fucks like a goddamn beast. Of course Jensen ends up ass over elbows in love with the guy; he’s a self-preservist, sure, but he’s not _immune_.

 

-

 

A few more weeks go by, a few more instances of Jared dropping by the hospital during shifts to bring him little containers of cookies, or to get a peek at Jensen’s new schedule for the next week. Big things cleverly guised as little things. _Coupley_ things.

“If they fuck around _with_ you—“ Danni tuts after one of Jared’s impromptu visits and Jensen nearly bites her head off for it. 

He apologizes later, after the fact, and things are okay. He thinks about it more though, and mostly mulls over the fact of how angry it had made him. Angry and hurt. And he can’t help but wonder, if it ever actually happened with them, if they became _something_ , would it be true?

He doesn’t mean to bring it up, but now that he's heard it, he can't stop obsessing, and it’s been ping-ponging around in his head in a relentless ricochet, gaining speed and fuel and a life of its own the longer he goes without saying anything. It all comes spilling out one night before he can bite it back. 

There’s not a single significant thing about the moment either. They’re laying around in bed, sated and happy and naked under the poofy comforter, listening to one of the music channels on the TV. Some crappy hair metal band is playing and Jared's hmming along, tapping tunes against Jensen's ribs.

“Why are you married?” Jensen asks, whispered but clear as he’s kissing the span of Jared’s knuckles, the bare spot where his wedding band should be, if he wore one. But they’ve never done that, neither of them, according to Jared, it never seemed like a big deal so they didn’t fuss with it.

Jared tips his chin down some, so he can see Jensen better, a puzzled frown appearing. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Jensen says, mouthing along the ring finger. “Why are you married?”

“You know why,” Jared says, and Jensen hates that he finds him so adorable when he’s confused. Gag. “I told you how it happened.”

Jensen’s shaking his head before Jared’s even finished answering him. “I don’t mean why did you _get_ married, I mean. Why are you _still_ married?” He keeps his gaze focused on the long bones of Jared’s hand – _proximal, distal, metacarpal_ – so Jared doesn’t see whatever’s bound to give away why he’s really asking, what he really means, how he really feels.

“I guess I never really had a reason not to be,” he says at last, when the silence has stretched so far and so thin that Jensen barely hears him over the rush of blood at his ears. 

_So that’s it then_ , he thinks, calm only by way of being numbed. This is what Danni had been talking about. This is how it feels, how it ends.

“Hey,” Jared pokes at his nipple. “Hey Jensen. Did you hear me?”

Jensen nods. Loud and clear.

“Are you—Does that, shit. Did I just freak you out?” The stuttery tremor in his voice is the only thing that grabs Jensen out of his near state of grief, and when he sees the scared, lost little boy look on Jared’s face, he feels like he just missed something major. Important stuff. He has to rewind some.

“What.”

“I wanted to tell you sooner but…” He purses his lips to one side in that way Jensen’s come to know means he’s thinking really really hard. Like he’s trying to make the right selection of words. “I didn’t wanna scare you off and ruin the best thing I had going—“

_What_.

"It was one thing, practically stalking you at work to get you to talk to me. But trying to think that you could ever actually want this, or want more than this. It's crazy. That's just crazy. Because I'm me, and you're—look at you. You're _you_ , and—"

Jared’s talking, and Jensen’s listening, but he’s still filtering and resorting and hearing _I guess I never really had a reason_ , hearing the thing he was deaf to the first time around. Never had a reason. Never _had_ a reason. Had. Past tense.

"—this is the first time I've ever actually felt this way. No one ever told me it'd be so _scary_." And then, “Dude,” Jared says, all bright, shocked eyes and mouth in a little oval when Jensen’s got him pinned against the mattress by his wrists, swaying over him. “What just happened.”

But he figures it out on his own, and he understands, like he always does, and he kisses Jensen and kisses Jensen, and swears he thinks he's having a heart attack, for real this time, no bullshit, and Jensen has to drag him back to bed before Jared tries to run off to the hospital to get checked out. Jensen needs a fucking smoke.

 

-

 

It was inevitable, Jared explains a few days later, giving Jensen a fairly detailed play-by-play of how it all went down. It was inevitable, and that’s exactly what he told her. She didn’t disagree, and that was probably the most telling thing. She wasn’t happy, and she definitely didn’t see it coming, and Jared feels like shit for making her cry as she watched him pack an overnight bag. But she let him go easily enough and in a sense, that in itself hurts too.

She doesn’t learn about Jensen, at least not that day. Jared figures it’s too fresh a wound to toss any amount of salt on. Maybe it’ll always be. But if she ever happens to see them out together, having dinner, shopping for new towels or DVDs or debating jellybean flavors at the supermarket, will she remember Jensen? Will she remember their two minute conversation? 

It’s a process, and it takes time, and not all of it has to do with simply waiting for the divorce to come through. There’re other things that Jensen worries about, even if he doesn’t make a habit of voicing them. 

Still though, it could be worse. It could have all blown up in his face, little shreds of his heart scattered outside of his body. That didn’t happen, no, but it could have.

 

-

 

There's a spat.

Jared wants a two-story with a pool. Jensen wants a two car garage and a basement.

It takes dozens and dozens of walk-throughs before they find a place they can both agree on. In the end, they go with a small two bedroom, two bath and it's got a lush yard in the back with a fence; and that coupled along with the spacious interior, it's more than enough room for two big dogs. There's also a huge medicine cabinet just waiting to be crammed full with gauze and lube and economy boxes of comic book character band-aids, and a walk in pantry with space to hoard Jared's gross Chocolate Marshmallow Mateys or whatever. It's an older house, and they'd be renting it, and it could surely use some TLC, but it's in their price range and it has a good feel and it'd be _theirs_.

The argument settles itself, rationally, and by week's end they're too busy christening their new place to remember how it all started to begin with. 

"You're a fucking asshole," Jared tells him later, stroking through the sweaty mess of Jensen's matted sex hair. 

"Sweet talker," Jensen says, and means it completely.

 

-

 

They meet on a Tuesday morning in the staff breakroom where someone's apparently let Jared in beforehand. Gen and Danni look awfully suspicious. It's 2:03 a.m. to be precise, Jared is twenty-seven years old, and it's been exactly one year to the day, to the minute. 

There are big pink princess balloons floating around that say Happy 5th Birthday and they have nothing to do with anything.

"Best I could find this late at night," Jared shrugs. He really is fucking perfect. There's enough cake for the whole night crew, and a bag of breakfast from Burger King waiting for Jensen on one of the tables. One of these days, he's gonna get the guy some wedding rings. Jensen's gonna make a _huge_ fuss about it. Jared might even throw up again. It'll be awesome.

Jensen eats his sugary anniversary cake, kicks Jared's shins under the table, and doesn't bother keeping his pink frosting smile to himself anymore.


End file.
